


Memories, Where’d You Go?

by SadShowtunes



Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Kevin is depressed, Late Night Conversations, M/M, bom secret Santa 2019, connor tries to help, you know the drill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21954883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadShowtunes/pseuds/SadShowtunes
Summary: It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but how is Kevin supposed to feel any sense of joy when everything he’s ever known to mean ‘Christmas’ is thousands of miles and a lifetime away?
Relationships: Elder "Connor" McKinley/Kevin Price
Kudos: 43





	Memories, Where’d You Go?

**Author's Note:**

> My gift for rrratchie on tumblr for the BOM Secret Santa! I had so much fun doing this. It’s way shorter than I would’ve liked due to time restraints, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

Anytime someone would mention Christmas, it always brought out the same feelings and memories buried deep in Kevin’s mind. He thought of all those bitter cold days—the ones his mother insisted were too cold to step foot outside, yet within the hour the Price children would all be bundled in layers and pelting each other with balls of snow. At some point, they’d be herded back inside to munch on freshly-baked cookies while mindlessly watching whatever family-friendly holiday movie happened to be on TV at the time. A poor attempt at a snowman would sit abandoned somewhere in the front yard.

He thought about decorating the tree with his family, and how Jack, though a year Kevin’s junior, would gloat about his slight height advantage by placing all the ornaments higher than everyone else. As for who got to do the great honor of placing the star at the top, that was bestowed upon whoever their parents decided had been most well-behaved that year. Kevin wound up doing it so much they had to start going with second best instead.

Or how each Christmas morning, he’d wake up to the pleasant scent of apple pie wafting through the house. Him and his siblings would all gather around the tree, say a prayer, then dig into their presents without a care in the world while a soft  _ Silent Night  _ instrumental played from an old radio his mom bought from a thrift store. Among the gifts always sat festive yet hideous sweaters their grandma had painstakingly knitted for each of them. But as much of a fashion atrocity these sweaters were, Kevin found them oddly comforting in a way that could only be described as sentimental.

As he stared out at the vast expanse of Uganda wildlife beside the mission hut, no longer bothering to continuously wipe at the sweat forming along his brow while the sun beat against him unfaltering, Kevin wondered if anything would ever be the same.

“C’mon, buddy. Elder McKinley said to come inside,” Arnold appeared and called out from somewhere behind Kevin, tone fading increasingly from chipper to concerned each time he was driven to repeat himself.

Kevin couldn’t force anything but a detached nod.

Something had changed, he knew. Growing up never felt so grim until he was faced with the harsh reality of it right in front of him. Those pleasant memories all too quickly were outgrown and became just that—memories, in the minds of responsible adults who simply no longer had the time to dwell on childish festivities. Even in a few years, after his mission, when he inevitably returns to his childhood home over the holidays to celebrate amongst relatives, he was certain it wouldn’t come close to comparable. Nowhere near the same, because  _ Kevin  _ wouldn’t be the same.

This is what Kevin found himself dwelling on anytime he had the opportunity. As the days grew unfortunately not cooler, but busier, with the Elders planning Christmas activities for the villagers leading up to the 25th, the late hours when everyone had long drifted asleep lended themselves to be his go-to time for these depressingly existential thoughts.

Kevin preferred the nighttime, he decided. Not only did it offer a meager yet welcome relief from the searing heat, but the lack of nosy elders and villagers prodding him with half-concerned questions or unsuccessful pep-talks provided the comforting silence he didn’t realize he needed.

“Nice night, isn’t it?” A voice came from behind him one night, distant but not in the physical sense. 

Kevin didn’t flinch, startled as he was by the unexpected visitor. He gave no acknowledgement from his end, even as the creaking of brittle wood under feet drew nearer and the figure he now recognized as his district leader sat uninvited, though not necessarily unwanted, beside him.

“I don’t know if you saw, it’s past midnight,” Elder McKinley said after a beat. “Christmas Eve.”

Kevin almost rolled his eyes. “If you’re going to spout some bullcrap about how I should be happy and  _ ‘spreading the joy of the holiday season’  _ right now, it’s not going to work.”

The other smiled slightly and looked ahead, perhaps at the same unexciting mass of stars Kevin had been previously focused, perhaps somewhere else entirely. “I’m not. Just stating a fact, is all.”

With that, no sound could be heard but the ambience of singing crickets and a nearby rushing stream. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but rather calming in a way only Elder McKinley could accomplish. Kevin admired that about him.

Somewhere, buried deep beneath layers of anxiety and self doubt mixed with repression, was a silent urge to confess to McKinley all his disturbingly pessimistic fears. Kevin wanted a shoulder he could cry on and feel no shame in doing so—a person who’d be a listener rather than simply give half-hearted consolations like most were so inclined to do. How pathetic is it that Elder McKinley was the one person in Kevin’s life he felt comfortable enough with to entertain the thought of wearing his heart on his sleeve?

“Do you ever miss home?” Kevin asked.

The district leader leaned back on his hand, fingers tapping an idle rhythm on the brittle wood for a thoughtful moment. “Sometimes. But after a while, I think this place becomes a little bit like a second home.”

Kevin nodded, though he couldn’t say he agreed at all. God knows if anything would ever give him that blissfully nostalgic feeling of  _ ‘home’  _ again. How does one go about chasing that feeling when a sunburn is biting against the back of their arm, a splintered piece of wood is digging into their leg, and the universe is forcibly stealing the steering wheel from their grasp and driving as far away from home as it can get, all the while chanting a mantra of,  _ ‘it’s time to grow up’? _

People always say,  _ ‘home is where the heart is,’  _ but he had trouble thinking of anything genuinely enjoyable in this god awful place. Though the villagers were nice, the other elders were irritating at best, and Elder McKinley remained the only one Kevin could properly stand being around for extended periods of time.

“What’s on your mind?” McKinley said, turning to face Kevin and holding a tone persuasive but not persistent.

This idea of being open to someone was new to Kevin. Usually, his thoughts were too scrambled to string the words together coherently in the first place, but perhaps there’s some people who can bring brief clarity to the confusion.

“You know how I always knew it was Christmas?” Kevin said, more to the dark landscape in front of him than anything, then absentmindedly kicked a small rock to hear it land in the dry grass off in a direction he couldn’t see. “My parents would bring up all the decorations from the basement, and we’d place them on the tree as a family. The moment someone would plug in the star on top, that was when I knew Christmas had begun.”

A nod, then a fond smile from McKinley. For a fleeting second, Kevin thought the other’s smile could outshine any star in the sky. 

“For me, it was always when my mom would take me to the mall to see Santa.” McKinley laughed. “Can you believe I was, like, thirteen before I realized he was a fake?”

“Well, everyone knows the guys you see at malls are just Santa’s helpers,” Kevin joked, prompting McKinley to land a playful punch on his arm.

“They probably didn’t get paid enough to put up with me.”

A disbelieving snort. “I can’t imagine you were  _ that  _ much of a nuisance.”

“You obviously haven’t met me as a six-year-old hopped up on candy canes.”

The two proceeded to turn the conversation to more discussion of tooth-rottingly wholesome memories from years long past, and despite his recent lapse in faith, Kevin began to somewhat miss all the ward Christmas parties and church services.

Against all odds, Kevin found a grin growing on his face and heard his own quiet laughter for the first time in what felt like years. Which isn't to say he never smiled—the long hours spent plastering on the mask of the bright-eyed missionary he was supposed to be left his face hurting some days—but he couldn’t remember the last time his heart swelled with the same genuine happiness as that spirited kid all those years ago, tearing the paper off of the toy he’d been begging for all year and watching  _ Mickey’s Christmas Carol  _ on the living room TV.

“How’d you do that?” Kevin said in the midst of an oddly riveting story about Elder McKinley’s uncle knocking over a bowl of mashed potatoes at dinner.

“Do what?”

The air bore lighter than before. “Make me so happy. I’m supposed to be wallowing in self-pity right now.”

McKinley nudged his shoulder. Neither could pinpoint exactly when they moved so close together, nor did they make any effort to move away. “I guess I just have that effect on people.”

Then, a moment of McKinley looking up in thought, before his face lit up once again and he jumped up with an outstretched hand. “C’mon, follow me.”

Kevin took his hand with little hesitation.

In the main living area of the mission hut stood a sad, borderline dying potted plant next to the chalkboard. Arnold had burst through the door a few weeks back carrying it and, excited as can be, announced,  _ ‘Look! It’s a Christmas tree!’  _ No one had the heart to protest despite it being barely October at the time.

“I bought these ornaments off a woman in the village last week,” McKinley said, now holding a box Kevin had never seen before. “Never had the chance to hang them up until now.”

“I…” Kevin began, though his mind had become blank.

And so they spent the next several minutes hanging the homemade decorations in blissful silence. For a brief moment, Kevin felt like that bright-eyed kid again. He’d come to realize nostalgia’s a powerful thing. If only it were possible to wrap up and hold onto—he’d much rather live forever in a naive, nostalgia induced daydream than another day in the real world.

He turned his head. Looking at Elder McKinley, there was a fleeting thought that maybe the real world wasn’t all that bad either.

~~~

All those sappy, positive feelings were short lived, to say the least.

“Why do I have to be Santa?” Kevin fiddled with the fake beard already beginning to reek with sweat. The way the other elders had handed him the suit and urged him out the door was all too quick for him to protest—or question them on their urgency, for that matter.

“Cause I’m their prophet! The kids need to listen to me speak,” Arnold replied, flipping through a copy of the Book of Arnold and pacing the floor. “Oh! Quiet, they’re coming in!”

Kevin would’ve hit his head against the wall, except he didn’t quite trust the structural integrity of a building built by a bunch of nineteen-year-olds, all with little to no carpentry skills and even less money.

The place, intended to be a church, turned into what’s more of a community center as village events and craft classes became more frequent than any religious teachings. Kevin admittedly enjoyed sitting in on Nabulungi’s book club meetings every Friday night (even if the majority of the books they read weren’t in English).

As the sun drew higher and room burned hotter, Kevin wondered if now was too late to take off the suit and inform all the young children currently filing in that Santa wasn’t real. Which, quite frankly, is worlds better than finding out from your older cousin on Christmas Day and getting berated by your parents for crying in the middle of a service, but that’s just Kevin’s opinion.

“Good morning boys and girls! Mwisuka Sekukulu!” It remained a wonder how Arnold could pronounce that, yet still struggled with his own girlfriend’s name. “Have any of you ever heard of Santa Claus?”

One child raised her hand. “My mama said that Santa Claus does not visit our village.”

Kevin’s heart sank, and Arnold said with a gesture beside him, “Oh, uh—Well, we were able to get in contact with the North Pole this year, and he said he’d make arrangements for you guys! Isn’t that exciting? Come tell him what you want to see under the tree tomorrow!”

Within moments, Kevin was bombarded by tiny, overjoyed children who he didn’t have the heart to get angry at for kicking his leg. Most of them asked for simple things—toys, stuffed animals, seeds for their garden—but then, a boy probably around six years old and smaller than the rest wandered up.

“Bwanbale,” he said, barely a whisper when asked his name. The floor creaked a bit as the boy shifted his feet. “You said Santa can bring me anything I want, right?”

Kevin and Arnold both nodded and leaned closer to hear Bwanbale, who now looked close to tears.

“My mama is really sick. I have not seen her in a long time, and papa told me she might not be around much longer.” He wiped his face with his shirt. “I just want to spend one Sekukulu with her.”

Kevin’s stomach all of a sudden felt like it had fallen to his feet. “Oh… I’m so sorry—“

“Can you do that, mister Santa Claus? Can you make mama well enough to celebrate with me tomorrow?”

“I—“ The air became so thick and quiet he could’ve heard a pin drop, and whatever Kevin wanted to say caught in his throat. “I’ll see what I can do.”

His coat became wet with tears after the hug Bwanbale gave him before running off to play with the other kids, leaving Kevin to stare off at a blank corner of the room.

“Ready for the next kid?” Arnold said.

Kevin stood and started towards the exit. “Actually, I need a minute.”

What a fool he was for thinking he’d be able to do this. Any of this. For thinking he can make everyone happy for Christmas. For thinking he’d be able to stay in Uganda in the first place. 

No, no matter how hard he tried, there’d still be grief. Bwanbale and other kids like him around the world would still lose their parents, or their uncles, or their friends. The ones still with heads full of dreams get crushed before adulthood—the world will always be an awful place and no amount of festive music or colorful lights could ever change the painful reality from which no one stays ignorant to forever. 

“Kev, buddy! Are you alright?”

Kevin couldn’t be bothered to go farther than the outside wall of the church, nor did he feel like moving once Arnold joined him.

“C’mon, you’re Santa! You’re supposed to the jolly one.”

The force of Kevin shoving his hat and fake beard to the other made him jump back. “Yeah, and what about Bwanbale? How’s he going to feel when he wakes up tomorrow and realizes miracles really don’t happen?”

“I’m sure he’ll understa—“

“He’ll understand that I’m a liar and life is full of disappointments.”

The tone Arnold suddenly adopted was one that didn’t fit him at all, blunt and stern yet obviously hiding hurt behind his eyes. “Yes, life is full of disappointments. And maybe he’ll realize how important it is to treasure the good things above all else, before he makes himself miserable dwelling on the negatives.”

No response, rather Kevin averted his gaze and picked at a chipped piece of paint on the wall. That was easy for him to say, but how was Arnold to understand how much the negatives like to pile on some people and weigh them down like an awful, ongoing sickness.

Arnold sighed. “Come on. We need to go to Kampala and get all these kids their gifts.”

~~~

  
With the time it took to get to Kampala, shop, come back, and pass out the presents, Christmas morning arrived before they knew it, which Kevin pretended to be excited for when he really wanted nothing more than to go home and wallow in self pity some more. At least the smiles on the village children’s faces proved humbling.

“That was fun,” Arnold said on their walk back to the mission hut, so early the sunrise barely peeked over the horizon. The same hopeful sunrise that lifted through Kevin’s window when his brother would shake him awake and invite him to sneak a look at the presents before their parents woke up. He always refused, but sometimes anticipation got the better of him.

A few hours from now, on the other side of the ocean, his family would be waking up to spend the day making even more pleasant holiday memories. Without Kevin.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

As they arrived at the hut, Arnold breathed one last apologetic, “Merry Christmas, buddy.”

Nothing, not even the melodic music heard through the door prepared Kevin for the sight before him. Lights and colorful decals in every variation of red and green decorated the entirety of the main living area. Under the ‘tree’ stood a small pile of presents and everyone wore genuine smiles on their faces as they lost themselves in festive chatter.

“Elder Price! Elder Cunningham!” McKinley exclaimed, setting down his mug of what looked to be eggnog and going to greet them. “Merry Christmas.”

Arnold appeared not at all surprised, but rather patted him on the back and went to join Nabulungi’s in a seemingly intense conversation with Elder Church, leaving Kevin still stood speechless and jaw to the floor.

“Did you do this for…” Kevin trailed off.

A quiet giggle from McKinley, who lead him over to the couch. “I may have worked a little magic after our conversation the other night.”

“You didn’t have to—“

“This is for you,” the other said, sitting them both down and passing Kevin a box wrapped in red paper. Neat, precise, and finished with a ribbon. It rivaled his mother’s mediocre wrapping skills, that’s for sure.

“Sorry, it's not the best. I gave Kimbay a day to teach me how to knit a sweater and this was the result.”

Kevin leaped forward and engulfed the district leader in a hug, clutching the sweater and letting wrapping paper fall to the floor. It was okay—more than okay, even. “I love it.”

The next few hours passed in some kind of amazing blur of gift giving, games, and no shortage of affectionate glances between him and McKinley. It wasn’t until Kevin stood in the kitchen, hand clutched around the old landline and hearing his mother’s groggy,  _ ‘hello?’  _ did all his anxiety crash back into him full force.

“Hey mom,” he said.

“Kev? Oh, honey, it’s so good to talk to you again. Your father and I missed you so much. Merry Christmas.” She sounded just as full of love and compassion as she had at the airport, so much so that Kevin almost started crying.

“Did you hear what happened? With the… excommunication and all?” There was no use dancing around the issue.

“I did.”

His grip tightened. “Are you upset?”

A pause. “A little bit, at first, yes. But I’m just glad my baby’s safe. I love you so much, Kevin.”

That’s his mom, alright. A few years back, Jack joked that their mother would let Kevin get away with murder as long as he didn’t get hurt in the process. An exaggeration, but accurate nonetheless.

“I love you too.”

“Was that all you wanted to say?”

Kevin’s breath caught in his throat. “Um, no, actually. I wanted to tell you something.”

“I’m all ears.”

The wire attached to the phone tapped against the receiver as he twirled it nervously around his finger. Breathe, Price, breathe. Two words. “I’m gay.”

There was silence. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you that. I probably just ruined Christmas for—“

His mother cut him off, “No no no, honey, it’s alright. I was just surprised, is all.”

“Really?” 

“Really.”

This was the last thing he imagined would happen, honestly. Anytime he so much as entertained the thought of coming out to his mom, he remembered that girl from his church who was disowned after her parents discovered she had a girlfriend. This, however, was an outcome worlds better than he ever could’ve imagined. 

A Christmas miracle, one might say.

Saying a gratuitous goodbye, Kevin hung up the phone and turned to see Elder McKinley in the doorway. It was picturesque in a way that was so very  _ him _ —that genuine grin and slightly unruly hair reserved only for the days he wasn’t required to comb it—and admirable so much that Kevin wouldn’t mind seeing it every day.

“I take it it went well?”

Kevin joined McKinley, falling into a hug that left tear stains and wrinkles on the others shirt. He knew he wouldn’t mind much.

And they stayed like that, for minutes or hours, Kevin didn’t know. All he knew was that he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else but there, in that very second in space and time, with annoyingly catchy music playing through the speakers and the other elders playful banter from the next room.

“There’s a mistletoe.”

So there was. Kevin always found them cheesy, really, like a bad cliche from a Hallmark movie, but the feeling of McKinley’s lips on his quickly wiped any and all thoughts from his head as he let the moment take him once again, slow and caring, just like he always imagined his first kiss to be. Because memories aren’t always where you’d expect them to be—sometimes, they’re in a stuffy mission hut in Uganda, with your friends singing obnoxiously in another room while you kiss a cute boy under the mistletoe, and that’s okay. 

Maybe the days of leaving cookies out for Santa are over, but Kevin doesn’t mind making some new memories.

**Author's Note:**

> I think it goes without saying that this was meant to be a lot longer, much more emotional, have more scenes, and overall feel a lot less rushed, but December is quite the busy month for me and I may have slightly misjudged how much time I need to write.
> 
> But I really hope you liked it and that rrratchie is happy with their gift! Happy holidays!


End file.
